Being the Child of a Parent with Borderline Personality Disorder

By: Beth McHugh 2014

In previous articles on borderline personality disorder (BPD) we looked
at the symptoms of this disorder and also case studies of people suffering
from BPD.

In today’s article, we will be addressing the experience of being
a child brought up by an adult with BPD, and the emotional damage that
may result from growing up in such an environment.

Tony, Chad and Brendan are now in their forties, but grew up in a middle
class home where money was not a problem. Their parents, Jack and June,
were both employed and had their three sons quickly, being only five
years difference in their ages.

Tony sought counseling in his 30s because he suffered from low self-esteem
together with uncontrolled anger bursts. The problem for Tony really
surfaced when he witnessed his mother, June, treated his own daughters
Kim and Riley in much the same way that he himself had been treated
as a child. June blew hot and cold with her grandchildren according
to her mood and state of mind. June was naturally a loving and caring
person, but her borderline personality disorder meant that she couldn’t
always maintain her equilibrium when under stress and she would occasionally
erupt and say and do quite hurtful things.

The three boys grew up in a household that was characterized by high
achievement, high expectations, good physical support but a characteristic
rollercoaster situation in terms of emotional support. This lack of
stability came from June’s unpredictable behaviors. One minute
she could be the typical loving mother, but if she felt threatened by
the demands of her job, or her parental role or if outside forces beyond
her control intruded into her world, she would revert to the emotional
age of quite a young child.

Tantrums were not uncommon if June perceived that things weren’t
being done the “proper way”. She did not cope well with
the stresses and strains of life and her temper could quickly flare
if the children should happen to be in the vicinity and left a toy in
the way, or other perceived “wrong”.

As her three sons grew, the problems increased, as the natural questioning
and boundary testing of puberty took hold and served as a challenge
to June’s power. Unable to see this as a normal process, June
overreacted each time her sons did not comply with her wishes, or questioned
her authority. If they did something she had forbidden, the result would
be a screaming match usually with June ending up in tears and retreating
to her room.

When June’s mother died she grieved badly but attacked her own
children for “not grieving enough”. She didn’t take
into account that her mother had lived in another city and her sons
had not really had a chance to form a strong bond with their grandmother.
All she saw was that she was sad and so her sons should be sad too and
be looking after her.

Her husband Jack was the official peacemaker in the home, with an ability
to calm June down. Unfortunately he often asked his sons to “just
go along with her” instead of actually confronting his wife’s,
at times, unreasonable behavior.

June was also a highly successful and competitive person. She had to
win and she had to be the best, otherwise her world would come temporarily
crashing down. As her children grew, she even competed against them,
refusing to let them win at board games when they were only children,
and openly challenging them in their own endeavors as they became adults.

Again tantrums would erupt if June was not the winner or the best,
she would burst into tears and again retreat to her room. She responded
well to cajoling and praise and therefore the incident would be over
in a relatively short time. June showed no evidence of mood swings of
the type associated with bipolar. For her, it was an intrinsic part
of her personality.

Like many personality disorders, trauma in the formative years can
be a trigger for its development and June certainly fell in that category.
She had been raped as a young teenager by her brother and although her
parents were aware of the incident, they did not acknowledge it to June
nor support her. It was then that June first started showing the signs
that would ultimately end in her diagnosis in adulthood of BPD.

June was also famous for playing one son off the other as they became
adults and she would have periods of normal functioning that would be
interrupted by sudden changes in mood and allegiances. The latter would
last usually less than an hour but the result was that, for the sons,
they lived on tenterhooks for most of their formative years.

The entire family was unaware that June was suffering from BPD but
just put down her behaviors of binge eating, reckless driving, uncontrolled
anger episodes, competitiveness and childlike crying to “that’s
just Mother”. Not even the husband understood that these recurring
symptoms were just part of a constellation of symptoms that made up
borderline personality disorder. When questioned later as an adult in
therapy, Tony thought that BPD was all about “wrist slashing”.
This is a common myth in the community. Self harm comes in many forms,
and not all BPD sufferers indulge in cutting.

As the children became adults, they all married and had children of
their own. But their relationship with their mother and her undiagnosed
illness had taken its toll. Yet all the children, Tony, Chad and Brendan,
were affected in different ways. The eldest, Tony, had a sensitive nature
and was often hurt by his mother’s comments. Although he would
argue his case when older, basically Tony separated himself from both
his parents as soon as he was old enough to leave home. While still
maintaining phone contact, the distance separating them led to less
turmoil between mother and son. That is, until Tony’s own children
were born. June started to ridicule Tony’s adolescent daughter,
criticizing her hair and her developing body. Tony and his mother had
a fight, but June brushed it off as “all jokes”. Tony felt
angry and recognized that the psychological damage that his mother was
doing to his daughter was similar to that which he experienced as a
growing boy, where he was less successful at sport than his two younger
brothers. As the conflict rose, Tony sought therapy and learned firstly
that his mother had BPD and was able to link its development to the
trauma she has suffered in her formative years. Having an new understanding
of the illness, Tony was able to put effective boundaries in place with
his mother that gave him a sense of power for the first time in his
life. He also learned to successfully teach his daughter how to deflect
his mother’s unsavory comments without insulting her, which would
have led to more tears and tantrums. He understood, as did his daughter,
that these comments from his mother came out of a deep sense of insecurity
and was also able to treat his mother differently, in a way that would
minimize her tantrum outbreaks but allow him to interact better with
her.

Chad, the second son, had always had a tumultuous relationship with
his mother. Also unaware both in childhood and adulthood that his mother
suffered from a real illness, not just a “bad temper” and
“moods”, Chad argued and argued with his mother. She argued
back. Neither would give the proverbial inch. Chad tried to make his
mother see “reason” and June tried to make her son see her
way of thinking. Neither would budge or try to see the other’s
point of view.

June was less capable of doing this than Chad, but what capabilities
she had were obscured by her need to have her son understand her hurt
and her pain. She has little time to see his perspective because her
lack of sense of self blinds her to the needs of others when she feels
threatened. These encounters between Chad and his mother usually ended
with June bursting into tears, as Chad is a consummate debater and he
usually wins the battle. But in reality he loses the war as he becomes
further and further estranged from his mother. That estrangement lead
to increasing anger at his mother for “not being there for him”
and he also ridiculed her behavior as being childish. His feeling of
being let down by his mother had even more serious effects – he
had a problem with women and remaining faithful to them.

Because Chad could not trust his mother to be there for him, that belief
system bled into his own life. He cheated on his girlfriends and, after
he married, he cheated on his wife. His first wife divorced him, but
he remarried. He cheated on her as well until she left him. When he
found a girlfriend, he cheated on her. Frustrated with his birth family,
angry at his mother, father and siblings, he couldn’t even walk
away from them and start a new life with a woman for any length of time
because he could not remain faithful.

However, Chad was convinced by his older brother Tony to have counseling
and this proved to be enormously successful for Chad. Out came all his
pain about his mother not caring for him. But when he too discovered
that his mother had been suffering from BPD, Chad softened. He was a
diligent person and did a lot of research on the disorder and with the
help of his therapist was able to see that many of his mother’s
poor behaviors were a result of her illness, not that she didn’t
love him or care about him. Chad learned that at times in her life,
his mother was incapable of giving him the attention he needed because
she needed all her energies to keep herself going. In fact, she needed
attention off others to supplement her own inability to deal with life
difficulties when they arise. So although June was able to hold down
a job and looked “good” to outsiders, inside her life was
almost a permanent struggle of feeling unloved and unworthy herself,
so she little to offer her children when she needed to be built up herself.
Today Chad’s relationship is much improved with his mother. He
too has learned to set boundaries with his mother when she does act
in unrealistic ways and make unreasonable demands. However he has learned
that to keep in contact, give her attention, and small tokens of love
keeps their relationship more balanced and happy. He is no longer permanently
angry. His problem with fidelity is a work in progress but he can see
that it is related to his early relationship to his mother.

Brendan, the youngest of the three brothers, had the opportunity to
watch the differing ways his brothers related to their mother. As an
adult, he stated that he saw that neither Tony nor Chad interacted with
their mothers in ways that were useful. So he decided to fly under the
radar. Brendan deliberately did not argue with his mother, just tacitly
agreed with her to avoid the risk of her flying into a rage. He never
questioned her, even as he grew older. He just listened and went ahead
and did what he wanted to do anyway. Hence when he was involved in family
therapy, he freely admitted that he did not “engage” with
his mother in the way that his two older brothers had. He didn’t
argue which would promote further argument. In therapy, he correctly
agreed that the way his two elder sibling dealt with their mother was
counterproductive, and both had suffered as a result.

However, Brendan had developed a coping mechanism that worked well
for him as a child but was not working for him as an adult. In flying
under the radar, Brendan did not learn important skills during his formative
years. Now, as an adult in his 40s, Brendan does not deal with conflict
very well and avoids it as much as possible. He comes across as the
most well adjusted of the three siblings, but that is because he does
not make waves and he goes along with much of what is said around him,
whether that be in his home, with friends or in the workplace. Brendan
is a “great guy”.

But inside, Brendan is seething. His anger only comes out when he is
placed in a position where he is forced to confront unpleasant relatives
in his life, and even then he will deflect correct observations about
his behaviors onto others, via a variety of techniques, such as changing
the subject, countering with a similar accusation, or going off on a
sub-topic to create a diversion that is mildly related to the main topic
however marginally. These are the techniques he used growing up to deal
with his birth family dynamics and these are the techniques he still
uses today to deal with adult issues in his own life.

In fact, so keen is Brendan to project a favorable image that he works
on being the “nice guy”. But he also has unconsciously turned
everyone who he perceives to be in a position of power to be his mother,
and acts accordingly. For example, if challenged by his boss, he will
fly under the radar, agree, but not change. Of course, Brendan was not
aware he was doing this until he went into therapy. But once it became
apparent that Brendan was avoiding unpleasant issues, it became apparent
why he, of all the siblings, would not accept that his mother had an
illness. He also would not accept his siblings’ admissions that
they had suffered as children and teenagers because of the mother’s
illness. While both his siblings explained their pain to him, he remained
resolute that there was nothing wrong with his birth family and that
his brothers should “let go of the past”.

One can only let go of the past if one acknowledges it, observes it
and learns from it. His two elder brothers had successfully embraced
that and were well on the way to recovery and were on better terms with
their mother, now that they understood that their mother’s behavior
towards them was not personal, but part of her illness.

Brendan, however, was emotionally stuck because he was still operating
under a childhood means of interaction with not only his mother but
with significant others in his life. He also had marriage problems but
would not face them directly with his wife but chose non-direct methods
of letting his wife know that he was not happy in the marriage. So the
legacy of his mother’s illness and Brendan’s learned way
of dealing with difficult situations had lead him to a point in his
late 40s where he was unhappy with his marriage but was unable to communicate
this information directly with his wife.

Brendan could not admit in family therapy that he had a problem, but
instead repeated that it was his siblings who had a problem because
they couldn’t let go of their past in regards to their mother.
What Brendan didn’t realize was that his two brothers, by looking
at the past and finding out in therapy how to deal with their own problems
and seeing the link between how they managed their lives and how their
mother’s illness had affected them, were now actually free of
the more detrimental effects of their mother’s illness and were
able to have a satisfactory relationship with her.

Brendan’s life finally came to a head when his wife confronted
him over marriage difficulties, and threatened to leave. Brendan is
still pretending there is no marriage problem and tries to lay low,
just as he did as a boy in his mother’s home while the fights
and crying went on around him. He deflects his wife’s statements
about the problems they face back onto her. Brendan can’t seem
to move forward from his mother so that he can deal with the problems
he faces with his wife today. Refusing to see that he has a problem,
he will not seek help.

While having a parent with BPD will make life more complicated for
their children, it is possible to heal childhood hurts caused by this
illness and, through the use of boundaries, have a happier life. Not
only with the affected parent, but with significant others. By removing
the beliefs that may have been instilled in the growing child by a BPD
parent, knowledge and understanding of the illness can lead to more
productive relationships for the birth family, and a more emotionally
stable parent. It is not the parent’s fault that they have BPD,
but therapy for the sufferer and also the adult children can result
in a much better outcome for all parties.